The Washington Post reported on Sunday, that the Obama administration this week will put in place a new review system to allow detainees held by the U.S. at a military base in Bagram, Afghanistan the ability to challenge their detentions.  While this is a small step in the right direction, the bigger issue is the administration’s decision to continue arguing against habeas corpus rights in the federal case brought by some of those same Bagram detainees now pending before the DC Court of Appeals. 

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 recognizing by a vote of 5-4 the habeas rights of detainees held by the U.S. at the military base in Guantanmo Bay, Cuba, and since Obama has declared that the Guantanamo detention center will be closed by the end of the year, all eyes have turned toward Bagram where hundreds of detainees are being held there without review. While both sides continue to argue the merits of whether the constitutional right of habeas corpus should apply to detainees held overseas by the U.S. in a zone of conflict, at least the administration now concedes what many of us have been arguing for years:  it is a basic human right that an individual cannot be deprived of their liberty without due process.  

Let’s hope that the new process afforded to Bagram detainees in the end will be a meaningful one.